Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

5 Lessons From the Hacking of an Adultery Website
Townhall.com ^ | August 20, 2015 | Michael Brown

Posted on 08/20/2015 8:03:18 AM PDT by Kaslin

After making threats for weeks, anonymous hackers have released the private information of millions of users of the Ashley Madison website, billed as the “most successful website for finding an affair and cheating partners” and boasting that it is “the world’s leading married dating service for discreet encounters.”

So much for being discreet.

What lessons can we learn from the release of millions of names of users looking for adulterous hookups?

1) Sooner or later, your sin will find you out (Numbers 32:23). Whether in this world or the world to come, if we don’t turn from our sins and renounce them, they will catch up with us and find us out. Count on it.

As Paul wrote to Timothy, “The sins of some people are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later” (1 Timothy 5:24).

One way or another, sooner or later, we reap what we sow, and if you want to avoid an embarrassing harvest, don’t sow embarrassing seeds.

If you knew that tomorrow, the whole world would know about something ugly you did in private today, would you do it?

One day, the whole universe will know. The Ashley Madison hacking is like child’s play compared to what’s coming.

2) Nothing is hidden from God. The real folly of “secret” sin is that it’s not secret at all, and the one whose opinion matters most is the one who sees it all.

We might hide things from our spouses and friends.

We might hide things from our pastors and employers.

Pastors might hide things from their boards and congregations.

But God sees what we do in secret, and if hackers have access to our private information, how much more does the Lord?

Live and act as if you’re in the presence of a holy God, and esteem His approval more highly than the approval of people.

3) It pays to live clean. When you have nothing to hide, you gladly come into the light (John 3:21), and when your conscience is clean, you have confidence before God and man. What price will you put on a clean conscience?

From the ages of 14-16, I was a heavy drug user, sometimes walking down the street with drugs in my pockets (and even a needle), getting on public buses or hitchhiking (the hippie thing to do, back then). And whenever a police car would drive by, my heart would pound, since I was breaking the law and I had the evidence on my person.

Once I was born again in late 1971 and drugs were totally out of my life, I remember feeling so clean when the police would drive by. I had nothing to hide.

It’s wonderful to be able to look people in the eye and not wonder, “Do they know? Are they suspicious?” It’s even more wonderful to stand before God and know that there are no skeletons in your closet.

4) Be quick to repent. It’s true that every one of us has fallen short of the mark at some point in our lives, even as believers. We have all said or done some things that are regrettable, things of which we’re ashamed, things which we wish we could take back.

But if we try to cover our sins we will not succeed; if we confess and forsake them, we will find mercy (Proverbs 28:13). If we get rid of the skeletons in our closet (by God’s grace, they can be dealt with fully), then no skeletons will ever be exposed.

The temptation, of course, is to cover one sin with another sin, to cover the adultery with lies or to cover the pornography with deception, but that only makes things worse, like fighting depression by getting drunk. When we add sin to sin, we only compound our difficulties.

That means that, as hard as it is, coming clean before God and important individuals – often meaning those whom it’s most difficult for us to come clean with – is the path to freedom.

Many a marriage has been destroyed by lack of confession.

Many a marriage has been saved by honest confession.

When we cover our sins, it’s like trying to swim across the river wearing a heavy lead coat. We only sink ourselves.

5) God’s Word is eternally relevant. Ashley Madison subscribers would be shocked to see how these words written more than 2,500 years ago speak to us today.

As it is written in Proverbs 6, “Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? So is he who goes in to his neighbor's wife; none who touches her will go unpunished. . . . of his house. He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself. He will get wounds and dishonor, and his disgrace will not be wiped away” (Proverbs 6:27-29, 32-33).

As for the owners and workers of the adultery website itself, Jesus speaks to this quite directly: “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!” (Matthew 18:7)

Both the existence of an adultery website and the hacking of that site are no laughing matters, and if the subject of adultery makes you nervous because of something you’ve got to hide, make it right today in the sight of God and man.

His abundant mercy is waiting for you, and the godly sorrow you experience today will lead to freedom and joy tomorrow.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: adultery; ashleymadison; dumbass; forgiveness; god; sin
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-22 next last

1 posted on 08/20/2015 8:03:18 AM PDT by Kaslin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Sadly, these folks think that the words of the Bible are so old and outdated. But remember that God’s word is ETERNAL.


2 posted on 08/20/2015 8:06:56 AM PDT by Biggirl ("One Lord, one faith, one baptism" - Ephesians 4:5)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Biggirl

God is ETERNAL and so are his words in the Bible


3 posted on 08/20/2015 8:10:25 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

AMEN! Thank-you and God Bless!


4 posted on 08/20/2015 8:11:15 AM PDT by Biggirl ("One Lord, one faith, one baptism" - Ephesians 4:5)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Amen!


5 posted on 08/20/2015 8:11:23 AM PDT by RaceBannon (Rom 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin; All
"What lessons can we learn
from the release of millions of names
of users looking for adulterous hookups?..."


 photo temptation.jpg

Help FR Continue the Conservative Fight!
Your Monthly and Quarterly Donations
Help To Keep FR In The Battle !!


Sponsoring FReepers are contributing
$10 Each time a New Monthly Donor signs up!
Get more bang for your FR buck!
Click Here To Sign Up Now!


6 posted on 08/20/2015 8:11:29 AM PDT by musicman (Until I see the REAL Long Form Vault BC, he's just "PRES__ENT" Obama = Without "ID")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Some sound advice, but I doubt that people dumb enough to use these sites will listen. Our moral compass seems really bent. Listening to the lead Rat giving a press conference on email it is clear that most of the country does not have the slightest idea of good, evil, criminal behavior and sin.


7 posted on 08/20/2015 8:12:59 AM PDT by Oldexpat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

#6. A fool and his money are soon parted. From the reports, it appears that 95% of the female profiles on the site are fake.


8 posted on 08/20/2015 8:13:54 AM PDT by peyton randolph (I am not a number. I am a free man.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

I give my thanks to the hackers for crippling such an evil organization. The LORD shall surely smile on them for their act.


9 posted on 08/20/2015 8:15:14 AM PDT by Objective Scrutator (All liberals are criminals, and all criminals are liberals)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

6) The internet has done more to destroy marriages than anything since no-fault divorce.


10 posted on 08/20/2015 8:15:18 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Indeed.


11 posted on 08/20/2015 8:15:29 AM PDT by sauropod (I am His and He is mine.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Where are the White House employee names? Numbers are meaningless. If the press can report Dugger’s name, they can report government employee names.


12 posted on 08/20/2015 8:21:18 AM PDT by aimhigh (1 John 3:21)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Well said, Michael.


13 posted on 08/20/2015 8:25:18 AM PDT by St_Thomas_Aquinas ( Isaiah 22:22, Matthew 16:19, Revelation 3:7)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Besides showing once again the benefit of living God’s way, these hackers revealed that 95% of the names were men, so this company was defrauding subscribers who thought they would be able to find an adulterous woman. This company should be sued out of existence by a number of parties.


14 posted on 08/20/2015 8:25:45 AM PDT by txrefugee
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldexpat

Considering the utter evil of PP, it seems that some people not only know what evil is, they rush to be swallowed in evil.


15 posted on 08/20/2015 8:30:51 AM PDT by mrsmel (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Buckeye McFrog

I’m a retired and recovering divorce lawyer. I’m not proud of it. In the last several years of my practice I priced myself out of cases where the prospective client just wanted to divorce because of incompatibility. I tried to talk people out of it. I got to where I only filed divorces where the relationship was so broken and the threat of damage to someone in the family so clear that I felt that they were better apart. I don’t know whether that is “fault based.” In my experience the “fault” that the law is seeking to avoid is based on the fact that one party blames the other but then the other comes back with his/her reasons that the relationship is broken. I would tell people that they cannot have a relationship with just the two of them, that it takes three. About half the people I would tell that to got it. The other half would look at me like I was nuts or guess that it was the kid or the state. I had to explain that it was God and that unless there was room in the relationship for God then there wasn’t a lot of hope. Then a year or two before I retired, I quit filing any divorces. Then I quit taking any cases at all. Now I have two post divorce custody cases that I’ve had for two and three years respectively. One is settled, the other one should be soon. Its been quite a journey.


16 posted on 08/20/2015 8:43:15 AM PDT by Mercat (The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him and delivers them.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

I think the users are really quite safe. No one has been able to find any names ....the link doesn’t exist.


17 posted on 08/20/2015 8:58:26 AM PDT by Fawn ("My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" Hosea 4:6)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

The photo of that “model” on Ashley Madison website just cracks me up. Photoshopped out the wazoo. Whoever falls for that ruse is just itching to get busted. - I get up every morning, before I brush my teeth, comb my hair, wipe the drool, or dress myself. I turn on the bright overhead light, look in the mirror without holding in my stomach or wiping the drool off my mouth. I then ask myself, “Is there anybody out there in their right mind who is gonna fall for that; even with a ton of lipstick smeared on it?” - Crickets answer. - I then shrug & waddle into the kitchen for coffee & thoroughly enjoy it AND with a side of bacon and the TRUTH.


18 posted on 08/20/2015 9:14:04 AM PDT by Twinkie (John 3:16)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Lesson 6: those people are in it for the money. There’s more money in blackmail than in subscriptions when the business numbers go south.


19 posted on 08/20/2015 11:52:40 AM PDT by xzins (Don't let others pay your share; reject Freep-a-Fare! Donate-https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

If one was so inclined to search the emails for a specific partner’s email, where would one find this list of so many folks who’ve attempted (successfully or not) to stray from their marriage vow?


20 posted on 08/20/2015 12:09:12 PM PDT by ro_dreaming (Chesterton, 'Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. ItÂ’s been found hard and not tried')
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-22 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson